Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day. In the afternoon, The Princess and my niece came to me and asked to go swimming, and so I said, sure.
I watched as they ran happily out to the pool in their swimsuits and beach towels in hand and I went back into the house. Not five minutes went by before The Princess came running into my room, threw herself dramatically backwards on my bed and began whining, "You have to come! We can't even swim. There's a caterpillar in the pool. It's dead. Someone has to get it out," she was waving her arms, rolling back and forth on the bed and squealing all this in the most high pitched voice she could muster (a pitch that only 6 year old girls can reach).
I looked at her calmly and said, "I'll come. I'll get it out," and she stopped her wailing and followed me outside. On the way, I said, "Jimminey ... it's just a bug. Why can't you two swim with these dead bugs? Can't you just swim around them? They're dead, for goodness sake," as this was certainly not the first time I had been called upon to scoop a dead creature from the pool's sparkling waters, before The Princess would swim.
I went to our storage shed and retrieved the pool net and scooped the "caterpillar" out of the pool. Have a look at this CREATURE! WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!?! I told The Princess, "For future reference ... this IS NOT a caterpillar and ... you were right NOT to swim with it."
On the upside ... it was DEAD! On the downside ... I'm sure it's cousin's are out there just waiting to go for a swim.